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Inside the Cocoon

Conservationists have pledged to begin coordinating efforts to save the snow leopard, the endangered cat that’s a mascot in some parts of Central Asia.

On October 22, participants at The Global Snow Leopard Conservation Forum, held in Kyrgyzstan’s capital, unveiled the Bishkek Declaration, a seven-year initiative that aims to coordinate conservation efforts in the twelve countries where these big mountain-dwelling felines are found.

Snow leopards, whose numbers are dwindling due to poaching and human encroachment on their habitats, live in the various mountain ranges jutting out from the Himalayas, such as the Tien Shan in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, and the Pamirs in Tajikistan. There are believed to be somewhere between 4,500 and 7,500 left in the wild. Also known as “barys” in Kazakh, the cats loom large in Central Asia. Bishkek and Almaty, in Kazakhstan, both employ imagery of a snow leopard on their emblems. The snow leopard is the mascot of the upcoming Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics in Russia (they also live in the Altai Mountains in Siberia).

Delegates at the forum called for increased cross-border cooperation to help protect the threatened mountain ecosystems where the leopards roam and declared October 23 the Day of the Snow Leopard, with 2015 set to be the Year of the Snow Leopard.

In the latest assault on foreign miners operating in Kyrgyzstan, an angry crowd has attacked an Australian-run gold exploration project in the south. The company says the attack looks related to the ongoing wave of violence against foreign mining outfits in the Central Asian country.

A group of about 200 protestors attacked the offices of Australian-listed Manas Resources’ local subsidiary, Z-Explorer, at the Shambesai gold field in Batken Province on October 18, Reuters reported.

A company representative told Reuters that the angry crowd met a bulldozer on its way to the deposit, which the company discovered in 2010. The crowd then ransacked the company’s local office, “looting computers and other equipment, and burning seized documents,” Reuters quoted the representative as saying.

The company reported only “minor damage” in an October 21 statement: “A group of activists … disturbed what was initially a peaceful negotiation regarding site works. This group is likely to be affiliated with groups that have protested against mining elsewhere in the country. As a result of the activists intervening, a larger crowd gathered, blocked site access and some minor damage was recorded at the community liaison office.”

A local official also downplayed the attack. “The protesters came to the company's office, but they did not set fire to it. They only burned some papers," the head of the district, Akram Madumarov, told the 24.kg news agency.

News that elder statesman Kassym-Jomart Tokayev is returning from a high-level diplomatic posting in Geneva to step into Kazakhstan’s second most important job, constitutionally speaking, has sparked renewed talk about who will succeed the long-serving president, Nursultan Nazarbayev.

On October 16 Tokayev was approved as speaker of the Senate, the upper house of parliament, Novosti-Kazakhstan reports, in a unanimous vote by the rubber-stamp body. Nazarbayev put Tokayev up for the key position after sending his predecessor, Kayrat Mami, to the Supreme Court as chairman.

The role of Senate speaker is crucial because, under the constitution, this is the person who steps in to assume the reins of power should the president become incapacitated.

As Nazarbayev ages (he turned 73 in July), speculation has mounted about his succession strategy – or absence of one. Analyst Dosym Satpayev told EurasiaNet.org last year that the lack of an obvious strategy to install a successor is fraught with political risks, including the possibility of a destabilizing power struggle if Nazarbayev falls seriously ill or dies in office.

Having a safe pair of hands running the Senate is vital for the movers and shakers in Astana as they mull a strategy to hand over power in the years ahead – and Tokayev is certainly a trusted loyalist. He has served as Senate speaker before, and also has been Kazakhstan’s prime minister and foreign minister.

The world’s largest aluminum company says it has won $275 million in damages from Tajikistan’s largest enterprise.

Moscow-based Rusal said in an emailed statement on October 16 that a Swiss tribunal had found the Tajik Aluminum Company (TALCO) in breach of two 2003 agreements with Rusal subsidiary Hamer Investing, Ltd. Under those agreements, Hamer had supplied TALCO raw materials for which the state-run Tajik company had failed to pay. The tribunal ordered TALCO to pay damages in excess of $112 million, approximately $147 million in interest, and almost $15 million in legal fees, the Rusal statement said.

The statement also said the tribunal had thrown out TALCO's $400 million counterclaim, in which the company argued that Hamer’s original contracts should be deemed invalid as they had been won by corrupt means.

Rusal “intends to make every effort to enforce the award in all relevant jurisdictions in the event that TALCO does not voluntarily comply with the award,” the statement said.

TALCO spokesman Igor Sattarov said the Russian giant had broken a confidentiality agreement. In comments carried by the Asia-Plus news agency on October 16, he suggested that TALCO could appeal since, “according to international norms, the [legal] procedure is quite long and provides for a few more stages” – including a hearing in a Tajik court.

Anyone who has visited Kyrgyzstan won’t be surprised by this news: Kyrgyzstan, officially, has some of the best honey in the world.

The Kyrgyz Union of Beekeepers took home five medals – three gold and two silver – at the biannual International Apicultural Congress held this month in Kyiv. Representatives from over 100 countries participated in the event, dubbed Apimondia.

At the Union of Beekeepers in Bishkek, the phones were ringing off the hook this weekend as chairman Kazim Karaketov feasted his eyes on the awards.

“We had no idea what a diamond we held in our hands. Only the global community could evaluate the true worth of our honey,” Karaketov told EurasiaNet.org.

Among Kyrgyzstan’s gold medal winners was the creamy white honey from the high-altitude region of At-Bashi in Naryn Province. A wax figure of a beekeeper wearing a kalpak, the felt Kyrgyz national hat, won a gold in the “beeswax model” category, beating an Indian entry; Kyrgyzstan also beat Slovakia for a gold in a category that considered display cases for selling honey.

Dark honey from Issyk-Ata in Chui Province and beeswax candles took silver medals in their respective categories.

Karaketov said that while choosing what to present at Apimondia, the union looked for products that had won praise at local contests. His sole regret: Kyrgyzstan presented only five products because it costs 180 euros to enter each. “Everything comes down to finances. We took a risk, but we should have risked more!” Financing problems had kept the union from participating in the past.

The only serious opposition candidate for the November election says she has failed to register. Oynihol Bobonazarova, a human rights activist, says authorities made it impossible for her to gather the required number of signatures to enroll as a candidate.

Bobonazarova, the candidate for the Union of Reformist Forces, had previously accused police of interfering in her campaign and harassing supporters who were trying to collect signatures. She said this morning she collected just over 201,000 signatures; the Central Election Commission requires 210,000.

"My opponent was not only [incumbent strongman Emomali] Rakhmon, but the whole state machine," Bobonazarova said at a news conference October 11, Asia-Plus reported. She added that government officials even tried to prevent her from getting the necessary stationary: “I didn’t think there would be so many obstacles and difficulties” to collecting signatures.

Six other candidates, including Rakhmon, have registered. Several are from so-called “pocket opposition” parties designed to bestow on the exercise the image of plurality, but which are loyal to the president.

Bobonazarova’s candidacy had excited the urban, online intelligentsia. She was the surprise choice of the two main opposition parties – the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) and the Social Democratic Party – which have failed to inspire, and overcome relentless government-backed smear campaigns, in recent elections. Besides being a female candidate in a conservative country, Bobonazarova came with bona fide activist credentials, untainted by business dealings or a flashy past.

Since the infamous comic character Borat burst onto the world stage seven years ago, Central Asian states have had trouble shedding their images as tinpot dictatorships run by vainglorious, venal leaders.

Kazakhstan, the fictional home of Borat, has since spent millions on PR buffing its image. So news that a TV series lampooning the Central Asian states à la Borat – with some uncomfortable parallels to the truth – is about to air in the UK will come as an unwelcome shock.

As The Independent reports, the show Ambassadors, airing on the BBC2 channel from late October, is set in the fictional country Tazbekistan, a hybrid of the real-life Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan.

“The fictional Tazbekistan is run by the dictatorial President Kairat who presides over a regime with a dubious human rights record,” reports the newspaper, a description that will sound familiar (albeit perhaps not amusing) to the inhabitants of the Central Asian states.

The authoritarian leaders of real-life Tajikistan (Emomali Rahmon), Uzbekistan (Islam Karimov), and Kazakhstan (Nursultan Nazarbayev) may not take kindly to this depiction – and they may be surprised to learn that the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has assisted in the program’s making.

The series's writers spent time at the British Embassy in Astana and were given access to other diplomats to learn about the realities of the diplomatic lifestyle.

It may be just an accident: the consequence, for example, of aging infrastructure. But a derailed troop train from Tajikistan passing through rival Uzbekistan is likely to draw scrutiny.

The train carrying almost 300 passengers en route from Dushanbe to northern Tajikistan slipped off the tracks early October 10 in Uzbekistan’s Jizzakh Region, injuring several dozen people, most of them conscripts, Asia-Plus reported. Radio Ozodi reported 52 injuries. There are no reports of fatalities.

Asia-Plus said there were about 200 recruits and several officers on board.

No rail lines connect Tajikistan’s capital, Dushanbe, with northern Sughd Province, which is in the Fergana Valley, forcing all train traffic to pass through Uzbekistan. This arrangement worked fine until the late 1980s, when both countries were constituent republics of the Soviet Union. But today the two independent countries barely speak. Uzbekistan is vehemently opposed to Tajikistan’s plans to build a giant hydropower plan upstream, fearing it will give Dushanbe economic leverage and control over the region’s limited water resources. Uzbekistan's president has said it could lead to war. Tashkent often looks like it is trying to blockade isolated Tajikistan – closing borders, halting freight, turning off gas supplies – in apparent attempts to prevent construction at Rogun.

NATO logistics officers dependent on Uzbekistan’s rail network to haul supplies out of Afghanistan are likely to take notice.

The governor of Kyrgyzstan’s Issyk-Kul Province was taken hostage for several hours on October 7 in the latest bout of unrest related to a controversial, Canadian-owned gold mine. Hundreds of protestors, including some on horseback, continued to clash with police late in the evening.

Protestors grabbed Emil Kaptagaev, who has been governor only since a summer shakeup that followed violent riots outside the nearby mine in May, and stuffed him into a car. Some reports said the rioters wanted to nationalize the mine, Kumtor; others said they wanted the government’s stake in any future deal to be no less than 70 percent.

Kaptagaev was released around 7 p.m. local time amid unconfirmed reports he had been drenched in gasoline and threatened with matches.

Several hours later, protests flared up again, with police reportedly employing stun grenades and tear gas in failed attempts to disperse rioters throwing rocks and pouring petrol on the road, according to Kloop.kg.

A press officer for the local police told Kloop.kg earlier in the day that the protestors were supporters of Bakhtiar Kurmanov and Ermek Dzhunushbaev, who were arrested last month for allegedly trying to extort $3 million from Kumtor.

Few in Bishkek believe protests like this happen spontaneously. Instead, they are often attributed to criminal gangs or politicians trying to extort money from the mine, the largest legitimate business in Kyrgyzstan. In a good year Kumtor accounts for 12 percent of GDP and half of industrial output.

One of the biggest businessmen operating in Tajikistan’s capital has admitted he’s been laundering Iranian oil money for years.

In August, EurasiaNet.org highlighted the Tajik wing of Iranian businessman Babak Zanjani’s transcontinental financial empire. The US Treasury had frozen Zanjani’s accounts earlier this year for allegedly helping Iran sell its oil, despite international sanctions. The EU has blacklisted him for the same. Now, under pressure at home, he says that’s exactly what he’s been doing all along, the New York Times reports, referencing an interview with the weekly Aseman magazine.

Beginning in 2010, Mr. Zanjani, who declined to be interviewed for this article, told the magazine and, in a separate meeting, the semiofficial Iranian Students’ News Agency that he used a spider web of 64 companies in Dubai, Turkey and Malaysia to sell millions of barrels of oil, earning $17.5 billion in desperately needed foreign exchange for Iran’s Oil Ministry, Revolutionary Guards and central bank.

“The central bank was running out of money,” he said in the Aseman interview, published last week. In 2010, “they asked me to bring their oil money into Iran so the system could use it,” Mr. Zanjani said of Iran’s political establishment. “So that is what I did.” […]

“This is what I do — antisanctions operations,” Mr. Zanjani said. “I am a businessman who has done his job well. Since I was placed under sanctions they haven’t managed to sell even three million barrels of oil.”

About Inside the Cocoon

Central Asia initially became known to the outside world for its strategic place on the Silk Road of antiquity. Today, the region is still a web – sometimes smooth, sometimes roughhewn – of competing histories and raw intrigue. It is often called the New Silk Road, but it is more like a tangled, elaborate knot, awkward to unravel.

Silk, so important to the Central Asia's identity from afar, is only harvested in a few places here nowadays. But the process remains uncomfortably familiar: the delicate cocoon of the silkworm larvae is immersed in boiling water, killing the worm and unleashing its treasure.

Inside the Cocoon will disentangle the opaque world of Central Asia today.

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